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Christmas is 9 sleeps away, and the courier parcels are arriving at our house like crazy town. The other day I had two separate companies pull up at the same time. They raced each other up the path, it was awesome.

A large amount of what is coming is either (a) online shopping for the kids from “Santa”, (b) online shopping for me disguised as online shopping for the kids from “Santa”, and (c) my usual work stuff that really isn’t particularly interesting at all.

And, then there is the presents. The Actual Presents, sent from various friends, family, Grandparents, Secret Santas and the like.

Now bears the questions – do you open the presents as they arrive, or do you wait until Christmas??

For me and my presents, I wait. And the reason I wait is because I don’t get to open many presents on Christmas day, so it’s fun. Now, I use the term “wait” loosely because let’s be honest, I have zero will power and 9 days is a loooooooong time to wait. But I will try, gosh darnit I’ll try.

But, for the kids. Do I make them wait, or allow them a couple of sneaky early pressies?

Reasons to Wait

The are intended to be opened on Christmas Day, so they should be opened on Christmas Day

It makes it all the more special to wait

It teaches them that they can’t have what they want, when they want it. They must wait.

It serves as a valuable bribery tool

Reasons to Let Them Let Rip (the wrapping paper, that is)

It makes Christmas last for aaaaaaaages

It allows us to treasure each present separately, rather than them getting lost amidst the chaos of Christmas Day

It shuts them the heck up. School holidays, yo.

Like I said, many of our presents come from Grandparents and friends who live far away from us. We aren’t going to see them on Christmas Day (*sad face*) and by letting the kids open the presents early, we are able to give those presents sole focus. This is particularly special when they are gifts that require concentration and loads of little parts. If the kids opened them with all their other Christmas Day loot, it won’t be the same.

At the end of the day, whether or not the kids should be opening their presents before Christmas Day is entirely up to the parent. I’m a read-the-end-of-the-book-before-im-halfway-through kinda person, so you can probably guess where my preference lies. But, that being said, there is still a healthy-ish pile of gifts under our tree, stubbornly waiting for Christmas Day.

I mean, I get it. For a kid, poos are funny. Farts are flippen hilarious. Even adults find them funny.

I didn’t think I would ever be a mother who would find poop jokes and bum jokes annoying. Let’s be honest – I was the kid who used to sing, “Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the DIDDLE”. I was hilarious.

BoyChild was a relatively late developer in discovering the hilarity that is toilet humour. Bt when he found it, boy did he find it. Everything, literally everything is a toilet joke.